The nature of “Earth”

Earth 1 307 Though earth contains a number of qualities as colour, taste, smell, touch, number, dimension, separateness, conjunction, disjunction, priority, posteriority, weight, fluidity, velocity and elasticity, we yet say that only smell is the specific quality of earth which differentiates it from all other substances. Ud ay ana defines earth as that which possesses the absence of the 3 absolute negation of smell. Gautema supports this view that Rocks 1. Science has found in the immensity of space the planet earth is hardly a space of matter. It is one of the mallest of nine planets moving around the sun, which itself is an average star among billions of stars in a cluster called the Milky Way Glaxy. (Brainerd Mears, Jr.,: The Changing Barth, An Introductory Geology, Van Nostrand Company, New York, 1970, Pages 19-20). The study of the earth is called the science of Geology (Fagan John J.: View of the Earth, An Introduction to Geology the City College of the City University of New York, 1970, Page 3). The Earth is composed of naturally Occurring chemicals called rocks and minerals. are the larger masses which are most evident in the land around us. On closer examination it can be seen that rocks are composed of minerals. Since rocks and minerals are substances and mixtures, they have been studied by both physical and chemical means. Chemical analysis of several thousand rock samples show that two elements, i.e., silicon and oxygen compose about 75 per cent of the materials in the Earth's crust. Adding the seven next most abundant elements, to give a total of eight accounts for almost 99 per cent of the material in the crust. For names of the elements in order of abundance by weights, see Appendix (e). 2. Prasastapada Bhagya, Page 27. 3. Udayana, Laksanavali, Page 18.

308 that earth has mell on account of the predominance of this quality. If water and other substances besides earth possess smell, it is because particles of earth are mixed up with them. Earth has geven kinds of colour, namely, white, blue or black, yellow, green, gray, red and citra (variegated). It has six kinds of taste--sweet, sour, salt, bitter, pungent, and astringent. It has two kinds of mell, agreeable and disagreeable. Its touch is neither hot nor cold, but varies according to the quaniity of heat. The Such an earth is of two kinds--eternal in the form of paramanus and non-eternal in the form of products. latter form of earth consists of parts which are so combined as to serve some useful purpose of our daily life. Things made of earth are of three kinds, bodies, sense- 3 organs and objects of perception. The olfactory organ is an earthly organ. It can perceive smell, i.e., it is through the activity of the olfactory organ alone that smell, which is the distinguishing quality of earth, is known and not otherwise. The genus of earth subsists in earth. 1. Gautama, Nyaya Sutra, 3.1.66. 2. Prasastapana Bhasya, Page 27. 3. Ibid.